


PANDEMIC : THREAT AND GIFT

by alexis_karpouzos



Category: Critical Research (Podcast)
Genre: Other, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27614512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexis_karpouzos/pseuds/alexis_karpouzos
Summary: We are in the midst of a sudden “bifurcation” in the evolutionary trajectory of a complex dynamic system. Bifurcation creates crisis, and crisis, as we know, is both danger and opportunity. Either way, it is a prelude to change. The challenge is to choose the change that leads to a sane and flourishing world.





	PANDEMIC : THREAT AND GIFT

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philosophy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophy/gifts), [Spirituality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spirituality/gifts), [Science](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Science/gifts).



We are in the midst of a sudden “bifurcation” in the evolutionary trajectory of a complex dynamic system. Bifurcation creates crisis, and crisis, as we know, is both danger and opportunity. Either way, it is a prelude to change. The challenge is to choose the change that leads to a sane and flourishing world. This is a real but non-recurring opportunity. Failing to seize it means returning to where we have been: facing the prospect of our collective demise. Because for the past several decades we have been exposed to a plethora of crises, and these are likely to be as global as the pandemic, but not necessarily as temporary. They include conditions as bad or worse than a pandemic. For instance: millions dying of starvation and penury—and through epidemics and violence taking further millions with them. Hordes of displaced refugees tearing apart the fabric of more and more societies. Droughts turning fertile verdant land into arid, lifeless plains. Rising sea levels flooding a third of the human habitations on the planet. Violent storms destroying the homes of rich and poor alike. And local conflicts escalating into regional wars and turning into a global nuclear confrontation. The unsustainable processes we have created could reach fateful tipping points— points of irreversibility. We either learn to live sanely and sustainably, or we leave the stage of history. This is a lesson we have learned on the level of theory. Now we are facing it in practice. global pandemic is an opportunity for consciousness change .Even if some people are depressed and do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, the pandemic we are experiencing is temporary; it will pass into history as all the previous pandemics did. But the change it brings may be lasting. It can be change for the better, or change for the worse. Making it a change for the better is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss. In a way, the pandemic is a blessing in disguise. It made us realize that we are an interdependent and either co-evolving or co-devolving living system. If we fail to make good use of the opportunity this gifts us, we expose ourselves to a plethora of crises. But if we make good use of it, we can create a better world. We can build a better world if we stop being fearful. There is nothing to fear but fear itself. What is it, then, that we need to do? we need to act differently; act as if we were part of the web of life on the planet. Because we are that, even if most of us neither realize nor act like it. We have been harming the planet, and so harming ourselves.We have ignored the interdependence and ultimate oneness of life. We need to adopt better goals. It is not “our people, our nation first”—not even all of humanity first. It is the web of life first, as it exists and evolves on Earth. When that web is safe and sound, we are safe and sound. Then we can flourish, instead of having to fight crisis after crisis. Our body is healthy when it is whole, and the body of humanity is healthy when it is whole— when it embraces and values all the beings that walk the Earth. We know this, and we have always known it. But in the modern world we have suppressed this knowledge, buried it in our desperate scramble for money and power. We have used the fabulous fruits of the human genius maibly to ach


End file.
